Searching for the digital cultural canon – proposal for an online survey

As was discussed in a former post almost everyone’s cultural canon is substantially influenced by the internet and the informational knowledge, the born-digital or digitized materials it is offering to us. In order to be able to devise efficient digitization strategies for minority heritage it is therefore necessary to get an overview on the “digital cultural landscape” which is visited, used and so to speak cultivated by minority members.

An online survey represents the best possible method to collect an extensive amount of data for answering the following main questions: which cultural or news websites with exclusive regard to the respective minority are visited? Which digital libraries are regularly used? Which types of materials are the users looking for? What other platforms like video portals, imageboards or encyclopedias are frequented?

Based on these results a digitization strategy can adapt to the digital reading/searching habits of the minority members; e.g. if an encyclopedia is very often used, then future efforts of presenting cultural heritage should be concentrated there or it should be considered that the overall offer of cultural materials is too limited to an encyclopedia and should therefore be further expanded on other, currently less considered platforms. Such a review can provide decisive indicators for the improvement or shifting of digital infrastructure and prepare the fundament for more successful cultural politics.

The MinoRecs-Blog serves as communication infrastructure for librarians, archivists and humanities researchers who are involved or leading in the process of digitizing the cultural heritage of historical ethnical minorities. MinoRecs provides them with the possibility to present their projects, to announce scientific events, inform about new technologies, debate new strategies and to establish new networks of international collaboration. By raising awareness for the issue the blog also intends to reach out to policy makers and media representatives and sensibilize the public for the urgent need to take into account the right of an ethnical minority to have its cultural heritage transferred and preserved in the digital world.